


Pick Me

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 16:10:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8167966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: Bruce spends six months in Switzerland and Selina wants nothing to do with him or his excuses.





	

He was good at leaving. Practiced, even.

And she was even better at dealing with him gone. Off to a chalet in Switzerland, a holiday in Dubai, a summer in god-knows-where learning how to fight. These were choices Bruce made that Selina was simply expected to deal with.

In the few years she’d known Bruce she had come to deal with his frequent absences but this last time, this last abandonment had been too much to handle and she cracked. He’d come to her on the rooftop, the one with the birds that she fed everyday in honor of her friend, without a hello. Without an explanation.

So like Bruce to jump into conversation, business as usual. He started talking nonsense about enemies and them being friends and Selina snapped. He was always serious. Now was nothing different. He was NEVER different.

Bruce changed but only in the ways that were superficial. He grew taller and stronger and could fight now. He closed off his heart and became obsessed with justice and truth (a silent cry to make up for the loss of his parents). But underneath that shiny, new venire he was the same boy she had met: kind, good and easily flustered. By her. That stipulation had always made her feel good. She, Selina Kyle, could get under the great Bruce Wayne’s skin.

Yet now as he spoke to her like his leaving was an accepted pastime in their relationship Selina couldn’t find it in herself to care that her Bruce was underneath this new Bruce. She didn’t want to have to pick at the plastic covering to find his heart. She didn’t want to be the girl that waited around for some rich, playboy dumbass to come back to her. Selina Kyle was better than that.

“Months,” she mustered with a sneer, “You go missing for months and leave this town to rot in the wake of all of those monsters and you have the gall to tell me it’s serious. I know it’s serious, Bruce. I’ve been here.”

He straightened his spine like he was preparing to talk to one of his employees and she could feel her blood boil, “I had to find answers.”

“You’re always looked for answers,” she spat. “You’ll always look for them. Even if you get to the bottom of this case you be looking for something else. Like some freaky detective. You need a project to distract you from your own life, Bruce. And I don’t want to be a part of it. Anymore.”

She saw his hope whither. He had been expecting something, she could tell. What it was she didn’t know but she wasn’t tempted to find out. She had a feeling however he expected this conversation to turn out would have only have hurt her more in the long run. Bruce Wayne never stayed for long. And she wasn’t enough to make him stay.

“Selina,” his voice was warm, “Please-.” He gingerly reached out to touch her arm. It felt like love and she yanked her arm away. His eyes flickered with shock and then disappointment, “Alfred said it was you or the work. I couldn’t have both. I guess he was right.”

Out of habit, Selina touched the stitch on her leather jacket. Bruce had sown it for her the day it ripped. His eyes followed her hand and she felt utterly exposed. Her hand dropped away, “I guess so.”

“Selina,” Bruce tried again, “I’m so sorry. For everything. I never meant to hurt you.”

“You? Hurt me?” She forced a laugh, “Don’t be an idiot.” Her eyes looked to the ground, anywhere but him would have been a better sight. Looking at him made her weak and she would not be made the fool, he was the idiot not her.

When he touched her again, Selina was suddenly pulled into Bruce’s arms. They had gotten so long and strong. The way they tucked themselves around her Selina could feel how narrow he still was but where he once was skinny was now leanness.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in her unruly hair, “I want to pick you, you know I do.”

Her body thrummed with sadness. She returned his hug with a ferocity that terrified her, clutching at the fabric of his shirt, “Why don’t you?”

“I need answers. I don’t want to need them but I do. There won’t be any rest for me until I find them.”

“You’ll never be satisfied,” she found herself whispering back, “You’ll always pick something over me.”

“You ground me.”

“You left me.”

“I know.”

“You care about me.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I know that, too,” he huffed a laugh into her scalp.

“No,” she smiled in spite of herself into his shoulder, “No I mean you care care about me.”

He was silent only for a moment before saying unflinchingly, “Sometimes I think I love you.”

She was unafraid and that scared her most, “Why?” She didn’t mean for her voice to sound so small.

“Because you’re Selina and I’m Bruce and there seems something inevitable about that.”

Inevitable was a good word. As soon as he said it she knew it was true and she was washed with despair. They were inevitable. Of course they were. And so she was inevitably going to be stuck waiting for him forever. He would leave and return as he pleased and she would be caught in the endless cycle of Bruce Wayne’s whims.

“No,” she choked out and untangled herself from his arms, “No, please.” His eyes were clouded and confused. “That’s not fair to me. I can’t-you can’t make that my life.”

And that was the moment she knew she had covered the last visible piece of Bruce Wayne’s heart. She saw it happen. He was now, outwardly, this other man. This other creature that bore Bruce Wayne’s name. This Bruce would have lots of women and spend his money like people expected him to and would look dashing and be utterly empty. And she pushed him to it.

To save her own heart.

“Of course,” he coughed and smiled, “Of course, that’s hardly fair to you. Anyway, I should be going. Thank you for your time, Selina.”

Cat reached for his arm against her better judgement and forced him to her. “Wait!”

“Yes?” His question was weak but hopeful. A glimpse of her Bruce shown through.

“Tonight,” she purred, “Tonight pick me.” His eyes widened. She leaned up on her toes and mused his hair, “Tonight don’t pick the work, pick me. A compromise.”

“I have to go over research with Alfred,” he responded, though his voice was wrecked with emotion.

Selina’s mouth grazed his, “Tonight, pick me. Tomorrow you can have the work. Tomorrow you can move forward. But I need tonight.”

And, apparently, so did he. The words were scarcely out of Selina’s mouth before he descended down on her. His kisses were searing and desperate, like he knew this was the last chance he would have to touch her. Selina had decided in their brief conversation that tomorrow she would be like Bruce Wayne and disappear. She wondered if he could tell and that was why he was so…desperate for her now. A farewell.

She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist, a groan ripping from her chest. He smirked into her mouth and she smacked his arm. “Shut up,” she managed around kisses.

“Gladly,” he ground out. He made better use of his tongue when it exploded her mouth and she didn’t mind when her back scraped against the grating of the bird cages.

She didn’t know how long she kissed him for and knew even less when his teeth dragged against her neck. She must have been doing something right because Bruce’s hips rutted up against hers, clothes rubbing against clothes the more time he spent on her neck.

“Shit, Selina,” he mumbled on her skin, “You saying my name like that should be a crime.”

The haze in her brain cleared. She had been chanting his name. How stereotypical. How like every other girl Bruce would ever kiss. She was reduced to begging his name like a starved woman all because he kissed her neck. “Shut up,” she whispered again.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had acted sixteen. So utterly reckless and moronic. She didn’t know the last time she had clung to a boy and kissed him silly. Or kissed a boy and dry humped him like a frisky teenager. She never felt like much of a teenager most days. Gotham was too hard of a place to enjoy such ridiculous things. But this roof felt like a bubble.

Maybe, she hoped, the roof would be their place. Their bubble where the world below could not touch them.

She nearly snorted at the thought. Who hung around rooftops?

It was a wish, not their reality.

But today they had the rooftop, she reassured herself. Tomorrow he would go off and become whoever it was he needed to be and he would leave her behind. But today they shared a roof and the chaos of the city below could not touch them.

(Years later they still shared silence and safety on rooftops. Under her ears and his cowl they remained Bruce and Selina. Inevitable.)


End file.
